punctuation

It’s Writescape’s 10th anniversary and we have lots of excitement planned for writers in 2018. This installment of 10 on the 10th is the latest in the series of monthly writing tips, advice and inspiration. Think of it as Gwynn and Ruth sitting on your shoulder and nudging you along. Share with your writing colleagues and encourage them to sign up for more.

As an editor and writing coach, I’m always surprised by some of the dialogue mistakes some fiction writers make. This list should help eliminate those punctuation and style errors and keep your manuscript in the “clean” status editors and publishers value.

1. Quotation marks cradle the words spoken out loud by a character. They don’t go around any narrative that isn’t spoken out loud, like the attributive (dialogue tag) Manuela advised in the example below:

“Think of quotation marks like a blanket, containing a character’s words,” Manuela advised.

2. Punctuation that belongs to the words spoken out loud are also contained inside quotation marks, and not tacked onto the attributive or dialogue tag in the examples below:

“That’s incredible advice!” Jerry replied.

“Why are you surprised?” she asked.

3. Attributives or dialogue tags help readers know who’s speaking. But once those speakers are established, there’s little value in constantly using them. In fact, they can get in the way of the conversation and bore the reader, so drop them whenever you can.

“I guess I’m always surprised by how much I still have to learn.”

“All of us writers are always learning, Jerry. It’s part of developing our skills.”

5. Beats or business placed before dialogue can set up the tone of the spoken words.

Manuela took a deep breath before answering. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jerry, please take your seat and get ready for today’s class.”

6. Beats or business placed after dialogue can set up the next speaker’s tone.

Manuela took a deep breath before answering. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jerry, please take your seat and get ready for today’s class.” She took a step back just as Jerry punched the wall, his knuckles now scraped and bleeding.

“I hate myself. I’ll never be a writer.”

7. Start a new paragraph with each different speaker. This clues in the reader to switch characters, like watching a tennis match.

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Can’t help it. I never wanted anything so bad.”

“Even so, you need to learn to channel that passion onto the page. Here’s a couple of bandages. Head to the washroom and clean that up. Then, if you’re serious about writing, come back, take your seat and get ready to write.”

8. Let your reader know when someone else joins the conversation.

A quiet voice from the back of the room piped up. “I guess he used to take drama, so he’s using Method Acting to develop his characters.”

Manuela searched the room for the speaker and found Angelique’s grinning face next to the back door. “Thanks for your input but next time keep it to yourself.”

9. Interior thoughts are not dialogue, not spoken aloud, so they are not placed inside quotation marks.

A quiet voice from the back of the room piped up. “I guess he used to take drama, so he’s using Method Acting to develop his characters.”

Manuela searched the room for the speaker and found Angelique’s grinning face next to the back door. “Thanks for your input but next time keep it to yourself.” Oh great. Class clown in the making.

10a. Some writers use single quotes for interior thoughts but they shouldn’t. Single quotes are only used for dialogue that is quoted inside spoken words.

Manuela faced the rest of the class. “The next one who offers up a comment like ‘I guess he used to take drama’ is going to find themselves out of my Writers Craft class. Understand?” Now that, she thought, should shut down the nonsense.

10b.Some writers use italics for interior thoughts but italics makes words and phrases stand out, like attention-seeking banners. Hi there. I’m an interior thought. It’s also more difficult to read and downright deadly when you write whole paragraphs of interior thought. Consider creating interior thoughts without any italics. Think about ways for you to craft thoughts in a way that doesn’t need to draw attention to itself.

National Punctuation Day

“Yes, Virginia, there really is a National Punctuation Day!”

National Punctuation Day (NPD) claims September 24 for a celebration of punctuation and its importance—a sentiment close to this editor’s heart. Founded by Jeff Rubin in 2004, he encourages people who value correct punctuation and spelling to post pictures of errors spotted in everyday life.

Just a bit of fun, to be sure, but good things have come out of NPD too. StudioSTL,(a non-profit that brings together authors, educators and artists with youth ages 6–18 to develop writing skills to be used in life, work, and school) raises money each National Punctuation Day for their free writing programs and raises awareness for the value of correct punctuation.

The return of the interrobang‽

FontFeed credits National Punctuation Day with the revival of the interrobang. For those, like me, who have no idea what an interrobang is, Wikipedia defines it thus: “A sentence ending with an interrobang (?! or !? or ‽ ) asks a question in an excited manner, expresses excitement or disbelief in the form of a question, or asks a rhetorical question. For example: You call that a hat‽” To create one in calibri, press alt8253. Well, who’d’ve thought‽

CAPS LOCK DAY

And as if that’s not enough, on October 22, it will be CAPS LOCK DAY?! This day was the brainchild of Derek Arnold of Iowa who was peeved by people using ALL CAPS to emphasize themselves on the web. He proposed that on this day EVERYONE USE ALL CAPS FOR EVERYTHING TO SHOW HOW ANNOYING IT IS and to poke fun at people who use this annoying typing style, in the hopes of bringing some sanity to the Net.

Of course, CAPS LOCK DAY has an underlying humour, but as with a lot of humour, there is a kernel of truth (sometimes a whole nut tree) to be unearthed.

A Sky Full of Poems

The use of humour reminded me of a poetry book I had as a child called A Sky Full of Poems by Eve Merriam (American poet and writer; 1916 – 1992). She had a series of rhymes and poems to help understand grammar and poetic terms.

Here are a few excerpts for you to enjoy that speak to homonyms, homographs, cliché, simile and metaphor:

From the poem “Nym and Graph”

A sound-alike is a homonym
Sing a hymn, Look at him.

A spell-alike is a homograph
A general staff, A walking staff.

//
Said Homograph, “From my point of view
I once saw a saw saw then a sink sink,
I saw a fly fly and a rose that rose up,
I sat down upon down,
I felt a felt hat,
And met a fair maiden at the fair.”

//
“Now tell me Homograph, can you
See things from my point of view?
For I, sir, aye, yes I eye a dear deer
And a hare with hair that is half of a pair
While I pare a pear beside a new gnu
And shoo a bare bear away from my shoe—
And all this I do at ten to two, too!”

From the poem “A Cliché”

//Warm as toast, quiet as a mouseSlow as molasses, quick as a wink.

Think.
Is toast the warmest thing you know?
Think again, it might not be so.

//
Is a mouse the quietest thing you know?
Think again, it might not be so.
Think again: it might be a shadow.
Quiet as a shadow
quiet as growing grass
quiet as a pillow
or a looking glass.

From the poem “Simile: Willow and Ginkgo”

The willow is like an etching,
Fine-lined against the sky.
The ginkgo is like a crude sketch,
Hardly worthy to be signed.

The willow’s music is like a soprano
Delicate and thin.
The ginkgo’s tune is like a chorus
With everyone joining in.

//My eyes feast upon the willow,But my heart goes to the ginkgo.

From the poem “Metaphor”

Morning is
A new sheet of paper
For you to write on.

Whatever you want to say,
all day,
until night
folds it up
and files it away.

The bright words and the dark words
are gone
until dawn
and a new day
to write on.

DID YOU KNOW

Eve Merriam was a pen name. She was born Eva Moskovitz. Another author who writes under a pen name is our guest author at Turning Leaves 2017, Vicki Delany who also writes under the pen name Eva Gates.

Ruth E. Walker. When I first started writing, I didn’t know the difference between a line edit and a copy edit. After some workshops and lots of reading, I learned there’s similarity between the two. Which is good to know because not only do I edit my own work, I edit other people’s work.

Both line editing and copyediting skills zero in on how you are using words. When done properly, they both give you helpful notes and editing marks on your manuscript. Check out some of those marks with a free download from Writer’s Digest of 11 Editing Symbols All Writers Should Know.

It’s so easy to miss errors in your own writing. That’s why I’m immensely grateful to have a consistent critique group. Even so, my editor at Seraphim Editions caught things my colleague writers missed. But he commented that mine was a cleaner manuscript than he often sees. Yay critique group! Yay me!

My editor, George Down at The Book Band, still asked some tough questions and challenged some of my choices. But a good editor is supposed to make you think hard about your work. I was pleased that he didn’t have to spend too much energy on copyediting and line edits. Instead, it was more about substantive editing: he pointed out missed opportunities in the manuscript — areas where I needed important connections, transitions or back story. More on substantive editing in a future post.

So what is the difference between a line edit and copy edit?

A line edit focuses on the creative side of writing: your style, how you use language in each sentence and paragraph. A line edit helps you achieve clear meaning that helps you connect with your reader.

Line edits eliminate unnecessary words, phrases, sentences:

• weak modifiers (such as: very, really, so)

• adverbs (such as: suddenly, slowly, allegedly, terribly, utterly)

• vague references (such as: this, that, those)

• repetitions (such as: saying the same thing in different ways)

• clichés (such as: straight as an arrow, dead as a doornail)

Line edits identify weak verbs that could be more active:

• she walked bybecomes
• she sauntered; she ambled, she strode…etc.

Line edits alert you to awkward sentence structure and unnecessary details:

• He looked up into her face above him, for a moment.becomes
• For just a moment, he looked up at her face.

Look closely at your own work. Is there clarity in how you’ve constructed those sentences? Are you connecting with your reader in the way you intend? Have you avoided tired, overused clichés?

Copy edits zero in on the technical aspects of all writing:

grammar

punctuation

spelling

typos

syntax.

Are you correct and consistent in when and where you capitalize words? Have you missed hyphenations, quotation marks or commas?

If you’re writing non-fiction, a copy edit should catch where you don’t have your facts straight. Accuracy and consistency is important for fiction too: If the moon is out in the beginning of the scene, how come it’s snowing at the end of the paragraph?

I have a confession to make.
I cannot keep my editor’s eye on only one kind of edit. If I’m doing a line edit on someone’s manuscript and I notice a typo, I’m going to point it out. I’ve tried to look the other way, but I want the work to be as good as possible, so I mark the error. Similarly, when asked for a copy edit, well, if the sentences are stumbling over clichés and characters are moving through physical impossibilities, I will mark that too.

But my first pass on my own work is to bring a line edit focus. And it should be the same for your work: focus on the craft, on the language you’ve used, on the images you’ve included, on the mood you want to convey. This focus strengthens your creative voice. You are the chef, so help your sentences offer the kind of magic that swallows your reader’s imagination whole.

Don’t spend your energy (or editing budget) on just getting the spelling perfect. That won’t matter if your story doesn’t hold anyone’s attention. And it won’t reflect what you want it to: a great story that connects with the imaginations of readers, editors and publishers.

At our Spring Thaw writers’ retreat, we kick off the weekend with a feedback session. Both Gwynn and I receive, in advance, up to ten manuscript pages from the writers attending the retreat. We each review those ten pages and make line and copy edit notes for the writers. And then we meet with them for a one-on-one chat about their work. We love hearing more about each writer’s plans. We talk about plot, about character development, about markets and agents. And sometimes, writers use that one-on-one to discuss an outline or query letter.

I think Gwynn and I enjoy it so much because we have both benefited whenever an editor or mentor met with either of us to comment on our work. It can make all the difference to be able to ask a question and feel safe in doing so.

Dr. Edit has the answers.

If you have any editing questions, why not write to Dr. Edit? The Doctor is always “IN” and ready to take your questions. Send an email to info@writescape.ca with Dr. Edit in the subject line; the Doctor will answer you directly and we’ll feature your questions and our answers in upcoming posts.